


Intersection II

by Bihotz



Series: Pokemon: Boiseko Battle Etxea [11]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire | Pokemon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire Versions
Genre: Anthropology, Bigotry & Prejudice, Caves, Culture, Ethics, Hipsters, Hopeful Ending, Indigenous, Indigenous Author, Indigenous Issues, Invasion, M/M, Married Couple, Original Character Death(s), POV First Person, Racism, Serious, Stereotypes, indigenous peoples
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 12:13:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9384578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bihotz/pseuds/Bihotz
Summary: When I, Wallace Stone, arrived at the Sky Pillar, I noticed that something was awry. It seemed as if some intruder may have entered the cave leading to the pillar. Knowing that my husband, Steven Stone, was guarding the Pillar earlier, I rushed inside to see what was happening.After I entered the Pillar, I found that an enemy of Sootopolis had allowed herself to enter. The showdown that I experienced here was one of the most defining moments of my life.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a first-person POV fic narrated by Wallace Stone. 
> 
> The tone is a bit heavier than my previous works in the series. You don't need to read the other works in the serious to understand this one, as there is a summary of the important events of the series in this work, but the other works can give good background information for why things the way they are in this moment in time.
> 
> Content Warning 1: There is a gun and some violence present in the fic, but there is no blood, and the gun is not used in the timeline of the story.
> 
> Content Warning 2: The fic deals with indigenous issues. I'm Native American myself, and writing about these issues in a fictional way helps me to think about how real issues affect my life. However, given current events, I would like to mention this as a content warning.
> 
> Obviously, I don't own any of the Pokemon characters. All the original characters (Merkel and Weston) are completely fictional.
> 
> Thank you in advance, and please enjoy the fic!

When I arrived at the Sky Pillar, I knew that there was a situation on the other side of the door. At first glance, I noticed that the seal had been broken - not forcefully, but in a way that suggested that the Pillar itself had opened itself up. There were a few bullets on the ground as well as discarded water bottles and plenty of footsteps, as if there were several people here at once. There were tufts of gray hair, which I knew belonged to my husband Steven, all over the entrance. Some strands were burnt on one end, others suggested that they were forcibly pulled out of Steven’s head.

Whatever happened outside was probably now inside the Pillar, and I knew I had to check it out quickly. I strode, with gravitas in every step, towards the door and raised my hand to perform the ritual to break the seal. The door, however, immediately opened itself and let me in.

The Sky Pillar is one of the most sacred sites in Hoenn, at least to us indigenous Sootopolitans. Other indigenous groups, such as the Draconids, also see this site as sacred, and even though we indigenous Sootopolitans have had many conflicts with the Draconids, the Pillar was so important to us as people that no matter how intense our wars became, we never fought each other inside the Pillar.

That being said, not anyone is permitted to enter the Pillar. Only indigenous lorekeepers, such as the Archons of Sootopolis, are allowed to enter the cave and tower. It’s not a matter of holding on to outdated traditions, as some accuse us of doing; it’s about respect and dignity. With much of Hoenn now occupied by settler peoples, and with anthropologists here and there thinking that their power means they can tell us indigenous Sootopolitans what to do - can we at least have this sacred place to ourselves? Besides, if people who don’t fully understand what is on the other side of the seal enter - let’s say that bad things may happen - which is what I initially assumed may have happened here. The Sky Pillar has its own protections against invaders, yes, but an intruder strong and determined enough could cause enough damage to the Pillar, as well as other more disastrous things that could affect the entirety of Hoenn and perhaps other regions as well.

Luckily, this wasn’t the case. As soon as I entered, I saw two familiar people in the room: one of them belonged here, one of them didn’t. Steven Stone, my husband, was lying on the floor of the cave. The top of his Archon regalia was torn off, possibly from some kind of fight earlier, and his bare chest showed bruises and wounds. Much of his hair on his head has also been removed. There was no bleeding, though, nor there was any infections. In fact, Steven seemed to be breathing and sleeping peacefully. A large vine gently wrapped around his right wrist. When I saw the vine, I was relieved. The Sky Pillar takes care of Sootopolis’ Archons, especially those who are injured from defending the sacred site. Steven will be all right.

“Hello, Wallace,” croaked a voice.

I turned around. It was Liz Merkel. You’d think someone who is the chair of the anthropology department at a university would realize that being banned from not only all Sootopolitan cultural sites but from the entire city itself meant that she shouldn’t be trying to get into the Sky Pillar? This fine researcher thought that the ban didn’t apply to her. As a consequence, she was now entangled in these vines.

On the ground, about fifteen meters away, was a handgun. An Aron, one of Steven’s, was gleefully chewing on the grip as if it were a mouse nibbling on cheese. The Aron didn’t notice me enter, but I decided not to call its attention.

“Care to help me out?” Liz asked weakly. Her fingers, which I noticed were adorned with Steven’s rings, were pressed together gently as if she were begging.

I chuckled proudly as I crossed my arms. “Why would I do that? For someone who is slowly being drained of health, you surely do have a sense of humor.”

Liz was not amused. “Tell you what. If you let me out, I’ll also help pay for Steven’s medical bills. I’ll make sure that he will make a full recovery.”

“Oh, you’re doing that already,” I smirked. “Do you not see that the weaker you become, the healthier he gets?”

“You’re kidding, right?” she asked. 

I remained silent, hoping she would get the message. 

“At least you didn’t bring Norman here with you this time,” remarked Liz. “It would be such a pain to listen to him again.” She then proceeded to mock a stereotypical high-pitched and hammish Petalburgher accent. “Hey, guys! My name is Norman, and like, welcome to my gym program at the Petalburg Gym! It would be mad awesome if you guys could sign in in the sign-in sheet, and please call your friends because the gym’s a bit blank today and they’re missing out!”

I chuckled at the whole ridiculousness of it. “You do know that Norman doesn’t talk like that at all, right?” I commented. “Do you even see Petalburghers as individuals, or do you consider each Petalburgher to be interchangeable with others in their city?”

“Well, you know what I mean,” she said in a weasel-like tone. After a pause, she added, “Forget I said something, then.”

“I dare you to repeat the impression of Sootopolitans that you made during your ANTH 101 class last week,” I challenged.

“What impression?” asked Liz as she raised her eyebrows.

I smiled knowingly. “Weston told me all about it. You said that Sootopolitan adults were ‘like children’ who are ‘from a backwards culture’ and ‘need to be told what to do’ and that us Archons were ‘immature frat boys’ who ‘perpetuate barbaric ideologies’ - which is quite interesting because every fraternity man whom I ever met is more mature than you are. Furthermore, you know that you have made your career doing anthropological research on indigenous Sootopolitans, and you still proceed to make these comments in public, while at the same time treating those you study as less than human. If I may say, your own actions are quite ‘barbaric’ and reminiscent of a ‘backwards culture’.”

“Wow, you learned quite a few words in Idaho,” commented Liz is a surprisingly non-ironic way. 

I paused for several seconds to register what she had said. “Excuse me?” I asked. “Did I hear that correctly?”

“Yes, you did,” answered Liz. “You used complex sentence structure, and you used the words ‘anthropological’, ‘furthermore’, and ‘reminiscent’ correctly. Or if you didn’t pick that up in Idaho, was that something Steven taught you?”

I knew where this was going. The “Stupid Sootopolitan” stereotype was all too familiar for me. But I wanted to be entertained, so I said, “Tell me more.”

“You see,“ she continued, “I know Steven may be an Archon, but he has a lot of Western Hoennian blood in him. I mean, look at him. I would guess he’s more Petalburgher than Sootopolitan because he is smart enough to be a professor and gets this rush of excitement just talking about rocks.” I knew that Liz’s statement here was incorrect and the idea of judging people by blood fractions is just barbaric, but I let her continue. “The thing is.” added Liz, “Petalburghers can use big words if they stop being dumb cheerleader types and start being serious. Sootopolitans, on the other hand -” She then stopped.

“Go on,” I said. “Continue your sentence.”

She said nothing and looked down. An expression of shame and defeat washed over her face.

“I get it,” I said with a confident smirk. “What you seem to be trying to say is that you don’t believe indigenous Sootopolitans are intelligent enough to use those words because we are, apparently, a ‘barbaric’ people from a ‘backwards culture’. This is why you made the comments you did your class, am I right? You didn’t believe that there would be a Sootopolitan person in your class because you didn’t think we were smart enough to ever be at a university, unless were like Steven who, is according to you, ‘mixed’. You know how I know that? When you know that I am Sootopolitan, you wouldn’t repeat what you had said in class in front of me, even though you know that I know what you had said. But when you see us as stereotypes and don’t see a stereotypical Sootopolitan in your classes, you assume that we’re not in your classes and you can insult us all you want.”

Liz responded defensively, “But Weston doesn’t look Sootopolitan. I wouldn’t have guessed that he was until that twerp challenged me to a Pokemon battle in class.”

“What does a Sootopolitan look like?” I asked.

Liz took a deep breath. “Well, they look like you,” she said. “They wear bright colors - a lot of white and some purple too - and they wear interesting costumes that show a lot of skin.” The word ‘costumes’ irritated me, as the word suggested that we wear these clothes to pretend to be someone else, but I let her talk. “It’s similar to what you and Steven are wearing, except a bit less fancier and no metal bangles.”

I got to give her credit for recognizing the platinum jewelry. These bangles, which are made of platinum from our Sootopolitan sacred sites, is one of the markers of our roles as Archons. Not all Archons choose to wear their platinum as bangles. Steven wears his platinum jewelry as rings and as the stickpin, similar to the styles that he had worn earlier, but most people in Hoenn could tell the difference between his former steel rings and his current platinum ones. The difference between his steel and platinum jewelry is like the difference between a bronze and a gold medal in the Olympics - people who know something about the Olympics can tell the difference, but those who know nothing about the Olympics might just see it as a neck decoration.

“And just because Weston happens to be wearing a red and black plaid shirt, dark skinny jeans, black-rimmed glasses, and a messenger bag, you assume that he can not be Sootopolitan?” I continued. “Or is because he is in a university as a student?”

Liz said nothing for several seconds.

“Speaking of the jewelry,” I said to Liz, “where is the jewelry that Steven was originally wearing?”

“I don’t know,” responded Liz.

“I could wait for Steven to wake up and check your pockets,” I offered with a smirk. “There’s no guaranteed you’ll be alive when he does so.” I got to admit, threatening people with Steven’s wrath is a lot of fun - and very effective. 

“Fine,” she said as she reached out her hands to me. I gently pulled off Steven’s rings from her fingers. 

“Now tell me what happened here,” I demanded. As she spoke, I slowly removed Steven’s stickpin from Liz’ white scarf and undid the scarf from around her neck. I realized that the scarf was actually the top that was torn off of Steven’s body earlier today.

\---0-0-0---

Once she finished her story, I didn’t say anything more. I wanted to give her a chance to at least reflect on what she had done but sadly, at least for her, she did no such thing.

“So,” said Liz after several more moments of silence. “I told you the story. Are you going to let me out?”

“Is that all you have to say after what you have done?” I challenged.

“Yes,” she said with a sense of selfishness I still am challenged to understand. “I do have kids at home, you know.”

“I feel sorry for them,” I replied with a straight face. “It isn’t their fault that their mother’s decisions caused her to end up here.”

“You’re going to let me out, right?” she asked again. “You can’t leave me here.”

“Why not?” I replied.

“It’s not fair,” she pouted. “What did I do to deserve this?”

“Let me explain the situation,” I offered. “For years, you’ve done anthropological work on indigenous Sootopolitan culture. Even though this research built up your career, you treated your research participants as objects and as children. You disrespected our culture and shared cultural capital that was not meant for the general public in order to advance your career. Last semester, my husband -”

“I didn’t know he was an Archon,” snapped Liz. “I didn’t even know he was Sootopolitan until the end of the semester.”

“That part is irrelevant,” I replied. “The fact is, Steven went to your office and respectfully asked you, in private, to stop mistreating our people and our culture. You spent the rest of the semester harassing Steven such as rearranging his office, almost running him over, spreading rumors about him, and even physically grabbing his shoulders a few times. Sometime in the December, you beat him up and had him held prisoner because he dared to defend himself and me when you insulted us at a holiday party. Norman and I were able to save him, thank Arceus, but when the government of Sootopolis found that you’ve assaulted and bound up one of our Archons, it was understandably angry. We in Sootopolis banned you from our city.”

“Instead of taking that as a learning opportunity,” I continued, “you decided that you wanted to capture Steven again. First, you decided to interrupt our vacation in Alola. This was when I found out that you were working with Team Disrupt to boycott our tourism, which is one of our main economic sectors. This was also when I found out that Team Disrupt was teaching our indigenous Sootopolitan youth to hate our people and our city. But I digress. The fact is, you outsourced your anger to Team Disrupt, who sent in mobs of vulnerable people to do your dirty work. You tried to have Team Disrupt freeze Steven so that he could be delivered to you in a block of ice. That didn’t work.”

“You also somehow entered the Cave of Origin,” I continued, “one of our sacred sites, without authorization and chiseled out a fragment from it. You bragged about it to the class, but when Weston, an indigenous Sootopolitan, called you out on it and challenged you to a Pokemon battle, you sent him to the Dean of Student’s office over the pretense of creating an unsafe environment in your class. You then tried to send the fragment off somewhere else, but Steven and I recovered the envelope, which you booby trapped with a poisonous powder. Steven managed to survive the powdery surprise though, which probably made you quite upset. We also found some graffiti and candy wrappers around the area that you chiseled out, which we cleaned up.”

“On what is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in Idaho,” I continued, “ of all days, you decided it would be a great day to have Team Disrupt gather a mob and cause chaos in Sootopolis. The mob didn’t work out because it was turned away. So you decided to come here to the Sky Pillar and cause trouble.”

I waited for Liz to say something more. She didn’t, so I continued.

“My husband Steven was in front of the Sky Pillar when you and your team of hired help landed near the entrance,” I explained as a I paced around her. “Steven was wearing his Sootopolitan Archon regalia and, as you have mentioned, gave you a chance to leave the place. Now even if you did everything up to this point and just turned around and left, you would not have been in the situation you are right now. But instead of being a sensible person and, say, admitting that you have gone too far, you decided that you wanted to enter the Sky Pillar. Steven was not going to let you in - like you said, he replied, ‘Over my dead body’ - so you chose to force yourself in.” 

“You gathered your help and, after punching him up, pulling out almost all his hair, and even shooting at him a few times, he still won’t let you in. So you had to knock him out, and when you did, the door of the Pillar opened. Your helpers, who sensed that there was something wrong with violating the sacredness of this place, had the sense to flee, but you decided to enter the pillar and drag Steven’s body with you. You decided to take the symbols of his office - his platinum rings, his Archon’s top, his stickpin - and wear them on your body as if they are some sort of sick trophy.”

“You venture in a bit further into the cave, and then you were trapped by these vines. Your gun was separated from you as you were bound, and a vine wrapped around Steven’s arm. Is that all correct?”

“Yes,” replied Liz.

I continued, “The vines and the opening of the seal were not an accident. They are ways for the Pillar to protect itself from intruders like you. But you’re telling me that after everything you’ve done - the Pillar made a mistake? In other words, are you telling me that you are not an intruder and that I should let you go?”

“Yeah,” responded Liz weakly.

“Oh, you humor me.”

Liz paused for several moments, and during that time, her face suggested that she now understood her fate. “So what happens if I just say here?”

“As I mentioned earlier, these vines will gently absorb all your health and transfer it to Steven. Eventually, Steven will be healthy enough of walk over here and kill you in any method he chooses, and you will be too weak to do anything about it. Or he can just leave you there forever.”

“And you’re not going to show me any mercy? None at all?” begged Liz. “You monster!”

I smiled and chuckled. “Maybe I can do something to relieve you from your current situation.” Instantly, I drew my husband’s stickpin and plunged it towards Liz’s neck. 

She started to scream for several moments. Suddenly, she became silent forever.

Moments later, the vine on Steven’s arm retracted, and Steven sat up as if he had woken up from a restful sleep. He offered a short prayer to Arceus in the Sootopolitan language, and then kissed me on the cheek. 

I didn’t know how to respond. I just followed him out of the cave.

\-----0-0-0-----

At 4am, which is 5am at Steven’s university thanks to the time zone difference, when both of Steven and I awoke from the Archon’s sleeping porch and prepared ourselves for the 1.5 hour journey to Idaho, we got a text message that the roads in the Boise area were covered with sheets of ice and that the university was closed for the day. That meant, of course, that Steven did not have to go to work. We had about four hours of sleep and decided that we were definitely staying in Sootopolis. 

We turned off our phones and slept until noon.

When we woke up, Steven received a university-wide official email from the administration announcing that Professor Lizette Merkel, Boise area native and chair of the anthropology department, suddenly passed away in a faraway city called Sootopolis. Nothing was mentioned about how or why she was killed. In fact, the announcement made it seem like the death was a suspicious accident - the Merkel Lab also officially disbanded, and her successor mentioned that the new lab will not be doing research on Sootopolitans. The Archons retrieved Liz’s body and allowed her family to receive it, and there was a remembrance ceremony at the university scheduled for early next week. Furthermore, I learned from another news source Team Disrupt was ceasing operations in Sootopolis.

At the Archons’ dinner in Sootopolis today, the mood was jubilant. During the opening ceremony, the Head Archon asked Steven, whom I let wear my signature white hat to cover up his new bald spot, and me for our thoughts involving what had happened yesterday.

“The whole thing took a lot of me, to be honest,” I said after struggling to put together my feelings into words. “Either way, I’m glad it’s over with. It’s sad that she had to die though.”

“Let us celebrate today for the closure of the Merkel Lab as well as the end of Team Disrupt’s interference in Sootopolis,” said Steven elegantly. “But at the same time, let’s respect those who are no longer living, regardless of what they had done previously. May Lizette Merkel rest in peace.”

**Author's Note:**

> Again, thanks for reading. As I mentioned earlier, it took a lot for me to write this because some of the events - especially the ones relating to discrimination and prejudice - are similar to ones I have experienced IRL as a Native person. Writing about these feelings helps me to process them, and I am so thankful that you are willing to listen. 
> 
> If you wish, feel free to leave a comment. Thanks, and see you around the Archive!


End file.
